Fewer Small Businesses Offer Travel Health Insurance

Small businesses that offer health insurance to their employees continued to drop this year, even though costs of coverage rose only 6.1 percent.Only 61 percent of employers with fewer than 200 employees offered health coverage this year, down from 63 percent in 2006. In 2002, 66 percent of small employers provided health insurance.

This year marked the third year in a row of moderate increases in health insurance costs, following years of double-digit percentage hikes. Costs next year are expected to grow even less, but they will remain twice as high as the inflation rate, Mercer projects.Both large and small employers who offer health insurance have shifted more of the cost to their employees through higher deductibles.

Large employers in particular are using health management programs as a way to control costs, Mercer found.Growth in consumer-directed Travel Health Insurance plans. which cost less than other types of health insurance, also helped curb overall health costs, according to Mercer. The percentage of covered employees enrolled in either a health savings account or a Travel Health Insurance reimbursement account rose from 3 percent in percent this year.